about me
--
niklas roy
Hello! I'm Niklas Roy, an inventor of useless things. As you can find a lot of information about what I do on the left - I think I don't need to write too much about myself here.

If you want to get in touch with me, you can find my contact details here. In order to stay up to date, subscribe to my RSS feed. For realtime news, follow me on Twitter. Subscribe to my Youtube Channel or have a look at plenty of hires images in my public Google Plus albums.


projects

Pneumatic Sponge Ball Accelerator


A mesmerizing interactive installation with 1000 sponge balls, racing through 150m of transparent pipes with the power of an ordinary vacuum cleaner.

Installed at Tschumipaviljoen, Groningen

Suck the Balls!

An interactive kinetic installation that combines a huge vacuum cleaner powered pneumatic tube transport with a small sized ball pit.

Made for Goethe-Institut Krakau.

À LOUER / FOR RENT

A moving “À LOUER” sign for Sherbrooke’s Media Art Biennial “Éspace [IM] Média”.

Micro Monster Modular

A module based algorithmic synthesizer for Finnish electronic sound artist Månsteri.

Instant Art Career

An interactive installation which invites people on the street to become professional artists instantly.

In collaboration with Kati Hyyppä.

Presented at Katowice Street Art Festival.

Cardboard Plotter

The cardboard plotter is a mechanical device for drawing digital images.

Roboter Reiniger

Roboter Reiniger is a little household cleaning robot which I released in Brasília.

Perpetual Energy Wasting Machine


Perpetual Energy Wasting Machine is a rope and pulley mechanism which moves an elevator continuously between the 1st and 2nd floor of a building. The system is powered by the sliding doors of the elevator.

Ping Pong Ball Suction Constr.

Ping Pong Ball Suction Construction is a pneumatic delivery system which sucks ping pong balls, visually appealing, through transparent pipes, in order to release plenty of them, at one point, right above ping pong playing people, while they do listen to country music.

Lumenoise

Light pen which turns any cathode ray tube Television into an audiovisual synthesizer.

Developed at La Gaîté Lyrique.

Wasserklang Modulsystem

Entirely mechanical sound installation where a huge water wheel drives many mini musicboxes in an expressive setup. Built together with La belle Imira at the Technikmuseum Berlin for Berlin’s museum night.

Electronic Instant Camera

An instant camera that prints directly on thermal receipt paper.

PING! - Augmented Pixel

A 70’s style videogame ball is playing with a video signal.

My little piece of Privacy

A small robotic curtain that tries to protect my privacy by being smart.

Privéfonteintjes

A series of small private fountains that are driven by the hydropower of a large public fountain.

Erstwiderstand

A constant air stream as a first barrier in the entrance of an art space.

Vektron modular

Vektron modular Vektron modular is another experimental synthesizer. Listen to some strange zoundz after the click.

WIA < > WIA

wia wia “WIA < > WIA”, short for “Water in Africa < > Water in Austria”, was a commissioned work for Ars Electronica. The installation, however, was a hoax. I made Ars Electronica believe that an African artist, “Melissa Fatoumata Touré”, would have connected the public well in the Mali village “Koulouninko” via the Internet with a public toilet in Linz.

Gallerydrive: The Grand Illusion

the grand illusion GD/TGI is an instant art museum machinery. The installation utilizes the Gallerydrive and Robotik Room technology in order to create a monumental mechanic environment through which the visitor is processed.

PSP - Pocket Sound Performer

pocket sound performer Pocket Sound Performer is a hand held, all-in-one, highly versatile sound and music production device. The instrument dissolves the boundaries of discrete music production units like samplers, synthesizers and sequencers.

Flora and Harmony

flora and harmony Flora and Harmony is a technoid, kinetic indoor jungle, built out of common electric household devices and a structure of stage equipment.

The installation was produced in collaboration with Wojtek Kucharczyk and commissioned by Club Transmediale.

Autohonk

autohonk Autohonk proposes an elegant and simple way to clear messy traffic situations by honking automatically, whenever the car driver has to push the brake pedal.

The work was funded by *.artlabs.

International Dance Party

international dance party The International Dance Party is a self transforming party in a box. While the piece appears first as a plain flightcase, it transforms itself to a disco machine if visitors start to dance.

In collaboration with Adad Hannah, funded by Interstices.

Robotik Room

robotik room Robotik Room is a self transforming machine which sets up a white cube exhibition space within seconds. The temporary room surrounds its visitors and makes them feel like they were in an art museum.

Gallerydrive

gallerydrive Gallerydrive extrapolates the technical capabilities of an audio guide system in order to achieve an art perception experience at a maximum level of convenience. While the system drives visitors automatically through the exhibition, it also provides great possibilities for art makers to control their audience.

Dokumat 500

dokumat 500 Dokumat 500 is an autonomous documentary robot which produces hobby videos from scratch. The robot absorbs not only the technical side of film production, but also the whole creative process which often leads to unexpected results for the viewer of those automatic produced documentaries.

Grafikdemo

grafikdemo Grafikdemo is a physical wireframe model of a teapot inside a vintage computer cabinet. The model can be rotated by pushing keys on the keyboard. Sophisticated lighting of the model makes it hard for the viewer to distinguish whether he sees a real digital model or a fake computer screen.

Pongmechanik

pongmechanik Pongmechanik is an electro mechanical version of the early electronic tennis game Pong. It translates the virtual game back into reality. The game is controlled by a relay computer which makes every computation visible.

Teleflipper

teleflipper Teleflipper is a closed circuit video installation, that emulates a virtual pinball game with a real 1974 Star Trek pinball machine.

Trigon

A short feature about a man who gets lost in the media.
workshops

Rapid Robots

This workshop was part of the School of Machines, Making & Make Believe. During one week, participants were building little Arduino based robots and at the end, they all won an award!

In collaboration with Kati Hyyppä.

We Be Cyborgs!

In this workshop, participants transformed themselves into cyborgs with materials from one Euro shops and the hardware store.

Organized by KIKK Festival, Namur.
In collaboration with Kati Hyyppä.

Cardboard Computer

A workshop at the School of Art and Design Offenbach, about building mechanical computers out of cardboard.

Umbrellaphones

A workshop at Prototype Festival São Paulo, about building umbrella based wind turbines which produce music and soap bubbles.

In collaboration with Kati Hyyppä.

Bastel Labor

At the street fest in my neighbourhood I offered a diy electronics workshop. Visitors were building Drawdios, oscillators and little vibration motor robots.

Surprise Control

Surprise Control In the workshop, the participants have built little “Surprise Machines”, based on the “Surprise Controller”. This was a preprogrammed microcontroller with a vast variety of possible behaviours. Depending on which peripherals are connected to which pins of the chip, it always behaved a little bit different.

Spaziergalerie

Spaziergalerie At this workshop, that I gave at the Art School Kassel, we were building a mobile gallery that we carried through Kassel’s downtown. With our little white cubes, we were catching people from the street and entertained them with our playful art.

Mechanic Sound Workout

mechanic sound workout Club Transmediale invited me to give a workshop about building little electro mechanic synthesizers. An old strowger switch from a telephone distribution unit was used as step sequencer to let the mini machines play a rhythmic pattern.

Mechanic Arcade Workout

mechanic arcade workout Lab.30 Festival in Augsburg invited me to give a hands-on workshop about building video games out of cardboard.

Electro Mechanical Bar

electro mechanical bar Berlin University of the Arts’ Students organization Interflugs invited me to give a workshop about electro mechanics. The result was a play- and useful bar, stuffed with an automatic DJ machine, a cheers device and many other freaked out gadgets.

Reinventing Television

reinventing television Valand Art School in Gothenburg invited me to give a technical allround workshop, where the students learned to use gears, motors, microcontrollers and cranks to turn old televisions into new storytelling machines.

Reconstructing Relay Logics

reconstructing relay logics Microwave Media Art Festival in Hong Kong asked me to teach the basic principles of relay computing logic, such as boolean algebra and 1-bit memories in a hands-on workshop. What might sound a bit dry, lead to a catchy result: The autonomous art tank robot.
old_stuff

Auto in Berlin

cruising in berlin The old cyberniklas.de navigation is a game in itself. By driving around with the car, you can access the different sections of the webpage. All items are located in the geography of Berlin and an extra feature waits when you crash your car into the TV tower. Steer the car by moving the mouse to the left or to the right.

Egoshooter

egoshooter Try to kill me in this exciting first-person shooter. My former appartement in Berlin-Mitte is this games’ stage. But watch out – I’ve got an army of my clones which will fight hard against you.

Peter Henlein Game

peter henlein Peter Henlein is not only the inventor of the pocket watch – he’s also the star of this 2D jump-and-run. Your job is to find the missing screw and to put it back in position to get the clockwork running. This game is 100% family friendly entertainment with an educational touch.

Cyberniklas OS

cyberniklas os Here you have a minimal operating system which features all the entertainment applications that you expect from a contemporary OS: A music production suite, realtime image processing, a handy set of tools and adaptable skinning.

D.I.Y. for dummies

diy for dummies This application aims at people with two left hands. It offers the great posibility of perceiving the overwhelming positive emotions when you have built something nicely. The program lets you fold a flat surface into a three dimensional cube – just by operating sliders.

Klaus Comic

klaus comic Dive deep into the soul of a messie when reading this comic. Klaus does really exist and I have accompanied him for a while in order to draw this documentary comic.

Archive

archive You have found the hidden backdoor to the superold content of the cyberniklas server. By searching in the archive, you can find out about the roots of cyberniklas.de – back in 1999 – including useless information about my different body parts.
newsfeed

Rapid Robots

Wednesday August 27, 2014


Last week, Kati and me gave a workshop on hi-speed d.i.y. robot construction for the School of Machines, Making & Make Believe, an art & tech summer school in Berlin.

The robots are shown next Friday at the Kunstquartier Bethanien at ScholOfMaaa’s final show.

[ Read more ]

New project in Groningen:

Wednesday August 27, 2014


My latest machine, the “Pneumatic Sponge Ball Accelerator” is currently installed at the Tschumi Pavilion in Groningen. You can visit it until the end of September.

Here, you can find the full documentation, including another video from ball perspective.

[ Edit: Added those supercool GIFs from Prosthetic Knowledge ]

Upcoming exhibition opening in Kraków

Monday March 3, 2014


This week on Thursday, 6PM, the project ‘Spieltrieb – the play in art, science and society’ will be kicked off at Goethe Institut Kraków. The project includes a one year exhibition of my new installation “Suck the Balls!” right at the Potocki Palace at Kraków’s main square (which is actually the Goethe Kraków headquarter).

Günter Schulz is testing

The construction consists of a little ball pit, a vacuum cleaner powered pneumatic tube transport and a ball shower.

Before I went to Kraków last week to set up the machine in the beautiful historic staircase of the palace, I asked my friend and technology aficionado Günter Schulz to come over to my workshop for some beta testing.

For further video analysis, I filmed Günter executing various performance tests.
Please analyze yourself:

Explosive Digital Data Storage

Monday March 3, 2014


Huh, it really has been a while since I updated my website! But here is finally the video of the installation which I made together with the Polish artist group panGenerator. Our idea was to create a digital data storage device with unclear capacity: If you fill it up too much with data, it will explode.

Data can be entered with a keyboard. Each letter which is entered into the balloon is also spoken out loud. And you can release previeously stored data again by hitting backspace. That will spell out old information and deflate the balloon.

The installation was built within a week, so there was not much time for testing. And at the end it turned out that it is rather hard to let the balloon explode. Such a balloon can really store quite a large amount of data :) And that’s also the reason why there’s no explosion to see in the otherwise really beautiful video :(

Thanks to Poland’s National Audiovisual Institute for inviting me to collaborate with the nice folks from panGenerator!

New Installation in Warsaw

Friday October 25, 2013


The National Audiovisual Institute of Poland invited me and the artist collective panGenerator to make a new installation. We called it “Explosive Digital Data Storage”. You can see it (and try it out) at Kordegarda Gallery in Warsaw for the next two weeks. Below is a picture of the opening and soon, I’ll publish a documentation.

balloon

Photo by Bartek Warzecha for NInA

Cyborg Workshop Documentation!

Wednesday October 9, 2013


The graffiti exoskeleton
Our cyborg workshop in Belgium last week was a huge success – now you can find the documentation about it here!

All cyborgs will be also presented at KIKK Festival, which will happen from November 7th-9th in the Theater of Namur.

Photo above: The graffiti exoskeleton. One of many exciting cyborg constructions which were built in the workshop!

Carlotta's Robot

Sunday September 29, 2013


My niece visited us this weekend – and she had a plan: She wanted to build a robot, because she finds robots cool. So she did:

Here’s the result. His name is “Robomobo”:

 

« Older Articles